Surviving
by dragons-syn
Summary: AU She did what she needed to do to survive.


Surviving

Title: Surviving  
Author: dragonssyn  
Email:  
Rating: PG  
Pairing: No explicit pairing

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate SG-1 or any of the characters of Stargate SG-1. I am purely borrowing the characters for the purpose of entertainment.

Summary: (AU) She did what needed to be done to survive. (implied physical abuse)

Surviving

She stood in the rain. Her clothes drenched and clinging to her. Her skin ice cold in the October night. She didn't move, she didn't flinch, she didn't react to the sounds of flesh meeting flesh coming from her house. Her body was numb, but not from the cold, numb from what she had allowed to happen to her, again. She had promised herself that never again was she going down that road. And for long time that promise held. But something about this situation was different.

Now looking back, she could recall the beginning of where it all went south. Her internal clock had woken her up. She rolled over in an effort to shut off her alarm clock before it started its incessant screeching. Her attempt to roll over was hindered, by what she wasn't quite sure. She slowly broke through the haze of her mind; she was cold, stiff, and in pain. It was an almost an excruciating pain under any other circumstance, but after being exposed to a Goa'uld pain stick, whatever she was feeling was bearable. Then the memories came flooding back. The angry fiancée, the alcohol permeating from his body, the precision he employed as to not hit her face, her arms, or anywhere that was normally visible in her everyday attire. He was ranting and raving about how yet again she hadn't made time for him, how her job and those she worked with were more important than him. He was attempting to make her feel guilty for doing something she loved, and the sad part was that he was succeeding. She should have caught it then, but she let it go, then rationalized it away, and picked her battered body up off the floor and got on with her day. That was six months ago.

Then last night, both he and she had made a fatal mistake. He had hit her in the face, giving her a black eye and a bloody lip and she headed straight for Cheyenne Mountain. She expected that at 0300, her team wouldn't be there and only a skeleton crew would be roaming the halls. She headed straight for her on-base quarters and had just shut the door when it reopened. She looked up to come face to face with a shocked Colonel O'Neill.

"Carter, I thought I …" he began jovially, then shock registered on his face as he took in the sight of her face, then anger flashed across his face. "Who did this?" He growled menacingly.

She had enough respect for him to not to lie. He had spent enough time in Black Ops, administered and received enough to know the visible difference between a bare fisted punch to an accident. She lowered her gaze from his piercing one; she couldn't face the shame of being used as a punching bag.

"Sir, I would really like to be alone." She said turning from him and heading straight to her en-suite bath. She ran the water, and barely registered the door to her quarters shutting firmly. "At least he didn't slam the door." She muttered to herself. She methodically assessed her injuries and cleaned whatever blood she'd missed before arriving on base.

Once she was clean, she sighed deeply and opened the door, only to find that he hadn't left at all, he had closed the door and set a chair in front of the bathroom waiting for her to come out. His anger was barely kept in check as he strode past her, grabbed the basic first aid kit from the bathroom and gently guided her to sit in the chair. He disinfected and bandaged up her wounds without a sound or a word until he finished.

"Carter…Sam…what happened?" he asked softly securing the last butterfly bandage to her lip.

"Sir, you know what happened." She admitted not daring to look into his eyes, fearing the disappointment that would lie within.

"How long?" he pressed further.

"I would rather not discuss this, sir."

"I would rather not make it direct order."

"Sir, with all due respect, you are not the best person for me to be having this conversation with."

"Let me call Daniel then, or Teal'c. He's really good at listening." He tried to joke.

"No sir, I will handle it. This isn't the first time I had to deal with this." She groaned as she realized her unguarded admission.

"Hanson, I presume." He surmised.

"Yes, sir. I survived then, I will survive now. I will ensure that Pete realizes that he and I are over and that he must abide by the non-disclosure documentation he signed." She said briskly, stood stiffly, and walked towards her door. The fates were not on her side this night, because before she could turn the knob, the door opened, and Daniel entered.

"Sam? You here? I was just walking by…What the hell happened to you?!" Daniel said taking in her battered face.

"Shanahan." Jack said through gritted teeth.

"What?! He did this! Oh Sam, why didn't you say anything?" Daniel said as he pulled her into a brotherly hug. She winced at the contact. Daniel felt her stiffen. "Where else?" he proded.

"It's nothing, look guys, I can handle this really." She said with as much confidence as she could. "I just need a little space, then I will go take care of it. OK?" she gave Daniel a chaste sisterly kiss on the cheek and left her quarters. She tried not to run, but once she rounded the corner out of her team's sight, she bolted towards her lab.

Daniel just stared at Jack shocked. "How? When?" was all he seemed to be able to get out. Daniel's mind was having a difficult time processing that the woman whom he considered to be a sister to him had been abused and possibly for a great length of time.

"Come on." Jack ground out as he grabbed Daniel by his jacket and dragged him out of Sam's quarters. Jack stalked down the hallways with Daniel close at his heels.

"Jack, where are we going? Shouldn't we find Sam?" he called out as he tried to maintain Jack's pace. Jack stopped at Teal'c's door, rapped twice, opened it, and stuck his head in.

"Shanahan struck Carter." He simply stated and left the doorway. Teal'c appeared a moment later with a beanie in hand and followed O'Neill down the hallway towards the topside elevators.

"Jack! Teal'c! You can't!" Daniel yelled, realizing that the coldness in his best friend's voice meant someone was not going to survive the night.

/

She hadn't wanted to believe it, more importantly deep down, she thought she deserved it. She felt that she subconsciously needed to be punished for all of the pain she had caused not only Pete but for the one man who truly held her heart. Therefore, the "punishment" she was receiving was appropriate.

How did my life go so wrong? she wondered to herself. Did I want a normal life so desperately as to allow myself to be treated this way? To convince myself I deserved this? Several heartbeats later, "No." she stated firmly aloud as the realization dawned on her. This was not her fault, she would not let him get away with this. He was a cop, and she had confided in him her experience with Jonas. He knew exactly what to say and what to do to illicit his desired reactions. She thought back to the look in Colonel O'Neill's, no, Jack's eyes, as she round-aboutly confirmed that she was being abused. It was ironic that the one person she had hurt so deeply was the one person who had finally convinced her (again and without his knowledge), what her father had told her those many years ago. So here she was standing in the rain building up the resolve to do what was needed to be done. Her apprehension turned to rage as she climbed the few steps that led to her front door, to her future.

"Jack! Jack! Stop!" Daniel yelled while failing in his attempt to pull him off of Pete Shanahan. "Jack, you are going to kill him! Teal'c help me!"

"I shall not Daniel Jackson," the ever stoic Jaffa said, "on Chulak, this worthless being does not deserve anything less than death."

As she stood in the doorway, she surveyed the situation. Teal'c stood to one side, hands clasped behind his back observing the scene in front of him. Daniel trying in vain to pull the raging pit bull that was Jack O'Neill off of the cur that was Pete Shanahan. Pete lay on his back, trying unsuccessfully to deflect the jabs and punches directed towards him. Finally Jack stopped, either it be to catch his breath or he figured that Shanahan had had enough.

"Wouldn't you do anything to within your power to keep her?!" Pete yelled from the floor, "But I see now, that's exactly what has happened all along. You have had her." He spat accusingly, "Tell me, how long have you and Sam been at it? The whole time she's been under your command, or just since she started seeing me? Is that it O'Neill? You couldn't stand to see her with another man, so you had to interfere…" The remainder of his drunken tirade was cut off when Jack lunged back onto the worthless excuse of a man.

"Jack."

Jack suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He was confused, there was only one force that was going to stop him from killing the one who had harmed her, and there she was. She had said his name at almost a whisper. Only his training and his acute sense of her presence allowed him to hear her. It appeared that even Teal'c hadn't heard her. He turned around to find her standing in the doorway soaked to the bone, water dripping off the tips of her short hair, and off her body creating a puddle in her front hall.

"Jack." She said again, slightly louder than before. "I need you to move." It was then that he saw it. She had been clutching it, adjusting her grip and re-adjusting her grip. He understood and nodded his consent and stepped away from Shanahan.

Daniel finally could let go of Jack's jacket when he saw that he was no longer required to hold him back. "Sam, Thank God! Are you alright…" Daniel began and then he too saw it. Her gaze fell from Jack to Daniel to Teal'c. All of them knew what was going to happen and they all understood.

"Sam. Honey. I am so sorry baby, I didn't mean it. It won't happen again, I promise." He stammered as he tried to speak despite the pain from this pulverized face.

"No, it won't." she said coldly as he raised her right arm, revealing the weapon in her grip, a nine-millimeter.

A deadly realization hit Pete Shanahan like a ton of bricks. "Sam, honey, can't we talk about this." He shrieked seeing the coldness in her eyes. In a panic he turned her superior officer, "O'Neill, you can't let her do this!"

"I can let her do whatever the hell she wants, I am not here. It's just you and her. It would be self-defense."

"Self-defense! I am worse off than she is!" he sputtering.

"She has the highest level hand-to-hand combat level for any female on the base and for most males to boot, my guess is the only reason you were able to lay a finger on her is that you attacked when she was most vulnerable, probably while she was sleeping, am I right on that one, Shanahan? Did you attack her while she was sleeping, safe and sound in her own home? I would say that any injuries you received here tonight would be nothing had she been fully conscious. So you see, self defense is completely plausible when it concerns the Major here." Jack replied smugly.

"Sam, let's talk about this. You don't have to do this. You don't want this on your conscience. Do you?"

"You won't be. This issue is closed." She stated coldly and pulled the trigger.

/

Once his body slumped to the ground, she turned from Shanahan's body and walked towards her front door.

Daniel followed and put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close into his body, trying to infuse as much of love and support as possible into her. Jack followed with Teal'c bringing up the rear.

"Ouch, that's gotta hurt." Jack commented rubbing in mock sympathy at his chest.

"Yes sir, it does." Sam said as she handed the weapon to Jack, grip first.

"Wow, full power, nice." He said approvingly as he checked the setting on the intar. "How about we get you dried off?" he said ushering his team into this truck.

FIN

Author's Note: The intar was first introduced in Episode 309: Rules of Engagement and later used in Episode 513: Proving Ground. The intar is a non-lethal weapon designed to administer an electric pulse that will temporarily incapacitate those hit by the blast. The level of the stun determines how long the individual is incapacitated.


End file.
